Welcome to my blog, featuring my musings on my life, my family, the news, politics, and best of all - Pop culture: Movies, TV, video games, and music.
Posts are categorized as follows -
PCP: Pop Culture Panorama. FML: Fatherhood Means Laughter. POS: Politics or Stupidity. As you may notice, I like witty acronyms. Follow the links on the right for posts under each section.

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Monday, May 20, 2013

PCP on DVD - Young Adult

Is it possible to really like an actress' performance in a film without particularly liking the film itself? The answer to that question is yes, proven here in Young Adult.

Young Adult - 2011, Rated R. My rating: 6 out of 10.

Young Adult is the story of Charlize Theron's character being stuck in immaturity. She was the queen of her high school, and got out of her podunk town to make it in Minneapolis as a writer of teen fiction novels. Because of both her career and also her own being stuck in the past, she is extremely immature and selfish, despite being in her late 30s. As a character study the film is great and Theron turns in an outstanding, fearless performance. Her role in this film is so unlike all of her prior roles. Between this and Snow White & The Huntsman, it is great to see Theron show she actually has some amazing acting range. Patton Oswalt is also outstanding as the voice of reason for Theron's character, one of her classmates that had been on the social outside looking in on the popular crowd that Theron was a part of in high school.

Aside from the great acting and the witty dialogue from writer Diablo Cody (Juno), I think my problem with this film stemmed from the fact that it was extremely bleak. Since we are seeing a character who is stuck in their life and going through a downward spiral, it isn't exactly what you would call a fun movie, despite being marketed as a comedy. It is much more of a black comedy, and I personally just haven't really liked too many of those. That's why I gave this movie a six out of ten, because the overall mood and tone of the film just proved to be too much of a buzzkill to overcome the outstanding performances on the screen. It's still worth watching though, just for Theron's performance. Hopefully you'll like the film better than I did.